


Diary of a Vault Dweller

by LazerWing



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/F, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Mostly hurt, NCR | New California Republic, New California, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Regrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-05 19:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17331239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazerWing/pseuds/LazerWing
Summary: Elizabeth Star is a Vault Dweller in Vault 18. After finding her heritage on a Vault terminal she decides to keep a diary to vent. It's strange.





	1. War Never Changes

**Author's Note:**

> First ever Fan Fiction, heavily based off the story of Fallout: New California; a mod for Fallout: New Vegas.  
> Hope you enjoy

Robco Industries (TM) Termlink Protocol  
Personal Computer

 

[ERROR]   
[Earlier data unable to be recovered]  
[Cause: data damaged or missing]  
================================  
Elizabeth Star  
Diary entry 11  
December 10 2177  
================================  
War Never Changes  
That was all I could ever think about all day. War. Never. Changes. We humans have always sought to gain power over each other, it’s only natural that we should turn to violence when we can’t gain anymore power. The world has changed over the millennia. Humans have changed over the centuries. Technology changes every decade. But War: War Never Changes.   
I’ve lived all my life in a product of war. A vault, a cement tomb, miles beneath the surface. Vaults were made 100 years ago by a company called Vault-Tec who made their money on selling nuclear bunkers to the common American citizen. In October of 2077 China unleashed hundreds of low yield nuclear missiles onto American cities and military bases. Our ancestors were rushed into the vaults to survive judgement day.   
The only problem was that the vaults were never intended to be the safe havens we were made to believe. They were experiments; sick, twisted, “scientific” experiments focused on human psychology and physiology under different parameters. We were lucky enough to be in a so called “control vault” though even this vault had a twist: in the main area there was an enormous computer complex that showed all the horrific experiments being conducted in all the other vaults. Thankfully this computer complex was quickly turned off by the first overseer when they discovered it.   
The vault was opened in 2157 by the third generation of vault dwellers. The ones that left the vault were initially exiled. However, after an uncertain amount of years we know that the exiles were let back in. We later sent out a small group of people to gather important technological items, food and water, to keep the vault running properly. We called this detachment “the Wasteland Scouts”.   
For over 20 years these Scouts lived outside the vault, helping those who needed it, while trying to remain independent from all factions and groups. Until they one day came across what used to be a prospering tribal village, the village had been ransacked by what they believed to be survivalists, a group of raiders that attacked and enslaved many smaller settlements. The only people that survived the attack were a small dozen young kids, none of them younger than 11 or 12. These children were all marked with stars of some kind, and if you hadn’t guessed it then yes, I was one of those children.   
]END LOG]


	2. ESCAPE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth escapes the vault with her trusty, and only, companion A.L.P.H.A.; a high tech military robot.

Robco Industries (TM) Termlink Protocol  
Personal Computer

 

[ERROR]   
[MISSING DATABANKS]

[RESUME LOG[  
================================  
Elizabeth Star  
Diary entry 30  
March 07 2178  
================================  
I can’t believe they’re all dead. Every. Single. One. Not a single of my friends made it out alive.  
The Enclave attacked the vault a few months back; killed everyone, it was a slaughter. As soon as the great steel cog creaked open exposing the musty caverns of darkness outside we were under fire, two great iron soldiers with masks of black steel and shoulders as broad as the mountains stood, bathed in sunlight from behind while flashes of bright orange bellowed forth releasing the metal wasps, that, without fail, buried into flesh on the other end of the cavern. Blue was splattered with red, my comrades, my friends, fell around me.   
A.L.P.H.A. and I rushed behind a large construction vehicle to escape the hail of bullets that rushed us in an angry stampede of merciless hatred to all things unclean. I watched as the rest of the vault’s inhabitants were mowed down like wheat in autumn. I saw no way to slay the metal giants; our bullets bounced off the heavy armor and any energy weaponry we possessed were simply reflected off the mountainous plates of charred titanium and lead plating. It would have truly been a sight to behold if it hadn’t been the most horrifying sight I had ever encountered.   
We managed to creep around the side of the vehicle and crouch behind a small outcropping of rock. A.L.P.H.A. insisted that we retreat so we slowly crawled toward the light hoping the monstrous beings behind us oversaw us. When we finally reached the bottle necking of the cave mouth, we were suddenly surrounded by high grade military turrets. It was just dark enough for the first few turrets to remain oblivious to our approach but by the time we had reached the third turret defense system there was a cacophony of beeping and alarms and suddenly the clunking of high caliber copper projectiles colliding with sturdy titanium alloy was the only sound that could be heard as A.L.P.H.A. and I sprinted toward the patchwork shack door. A.L.P.H.A. ripped the rickety thing off its hinges as we rushed out of the tunnel and around the nearest corner to escape the hellfire, we were in.  
[END LOG]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are appreciated ^^


	3. A new friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth meets a person in a bar, exposition commences.

[ERROR]   
[MISSING DATABANKS]

[RESUME LOG[  
================================  
Elizabeth Star  
Diary entry 37  
March 15 2178  
================================  
I made a friend today.  
I had finally reached what could pass for civilization, in this god-forsaken wasteland of sand and mutants. I was sitting in a cheap bar on main street in Union City, the NCR’s very own inspiring hell hole between desert sand and murder plant fields. It’s a charming little cluster of shacks if there ever was one this close to Cajon Pass. Had all the modern amenities one could wish for, except running water and reliable electricity, the bar was in the middle of the city only about 100 feet from the “main hall” as the bureaucrats would call it, a large saloon turned outpost that had the same charm Death Valley has in the summer.   
While I was sitting in the bar spending the cash the general had so generously handed me after blackmailing me into helping him with his power problems, the very idea sours my mouth just thinking about it. The booze was like the town, cheap, of poor quality, and only enjoyable when you’re high on blood loss and Med-X.   
After a good 40 minutes of feeling sorry for myself, and roughly 3 bottles of bottom shelf “whiskey”, likely straight from the Abraxo filled still they had in the back. I was walking up to finally pay my tab and turn in for the night when I bumped into a gray-haired strange looking woman with very long dreadlocks and eyes that looked like they had seen more lifetimes than a ghoul and more death than a raider. She seemed like the type that could tear a whole town apart with a hand bound behind her back. Her green piercing eye flashed towards me and she looked disapprovingly at my alcohol stained shirt and almost empty bottle of “whiskey”, I could tell she didn’t care for lowlife, but for some reason instead of telling me to go eat a bullet, she invited me over to her table with her even weirder friend.  
“You look like you’ve seen a great many sorrows my friend,” she stated while taking a sip of what looked like bootleg tequila. “You don’t see many people here who are on their third bottle of homebrew and still standing, let alone sober enough to accept invitations.” She continued, looking me up and down like I was some miracle to behold.   
“Ah wann’t gon’ ahssept if ah knew yeh’d jus’ expect me teh tell yeh mah whole life storeh.” I so eloquently slurred through several hiccups while trying to not look at anything higher than waist height for fear of the world falling out from under my feet.  
She chuckled, “And here I was hoping to hear your sob story about how your mom was killed by bloatflies. Name’s Annai Oran by the way.” Her smile was blinding yet still seemed forced, it never really reached her eyes and her posture was always very tense, like she was expecting to be attacked at any time.   
After a small pause Annai broke the relative silence, “So… Do you have anywhere to stay tonight? If not, you could come with us, it’s a bit cramped in the old motel but we can make it work.” After a long time of pondering (1 or 2 seconds) I begrudgingly (very willingly) agreed.   
When we finally escaped the heat and smoke of the ram shackle bar, and I could breathe properly I could clear my head. I looked up to see Annai’s one green eye looking back at me, it was almost beautiful enough in the moonlight for me to forget that she had a green eye. A single glowing green eye, and a normal greenish grey one. She must have seen the look of surprise on my face because she chuckled darkly and turned to start walking towards the motel entrance down the road. 

“…So, what had you trying to drown yourself in jet fuel?” She asked the second the door to her room closed. Her piercing eye rooting me to the spot like a gorgon’s stare.   
“I, I… uhhh.. I was trying to forget, I guess.” I stammered forth, shifting uncomfortably. “Oh? Is that so? What’s so painful it needs alcohol poisoning to be forgotten? Did a sweetheart of yours cheat on you?” “I.. lost a lot of friends recently” I sighed, my eyelids feeling heavy from the alcohol and my brain feeling more filled with fluff than a bighorner calf.  
“Was it the explosion out eastwards, near Cajon Pass?” Annai questioned cautiously. “How did you know?!” I responded. Annai smiled a sad smile “Anyone from here to San Francisco could see that mushroom cloud and they probably heard it all the way to Dallas, of course I know about that. So… what caused it?” The room fell silent, the only sounds to be heard, the creaking of the beds above and below us and the sound of rustling of cloth as I shifted uneasily. “It was our vault’s nuclear reactor, the overseer decided to initiate the self-destruct sequence after learning that we were under attack from the Enclave. We had finally fought off the parts of the vault, John Bragg had managed to convert to his side of things when he decided we couldn’t hold out any longer. So, he gave us 20 minutes to leave the vault before all the reactors went critical.”  
“Wait did you say John Bragg? A brown-haired man looking to be around 30 or 40? That John Bragg?” Annai exclaimed incredulously. When she saw me nod, she had a terrified look on her face, but slowly it morphed into a look of resolute determination. Seeing the questioning look I had she explained, “John Bragg is a mutant experiment gone either terribly wrong, or impossibly right. It essentially made him invincible, he’s walked off worse things than a little nuke, that son-of-a-bitch will be walking around California in no time. Been trying to find him for years, but it seems I’m always a few steps behind him wherever I go.”  
And with that note Annai decided to go to bed, she left a few blankets and pillows out for me but otherwise left me standing there, staring open-mouthed into nothing thinking about what she had just said.  
[End Log]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave thoughts and/or suggestions for continuation of story


End file.
